fauxpas
New Head-Fier
- Joined
- Oct 1, 2006
- Posts
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So recently I decided not to retire my Sennheiser HD590s but buy new earpads and an appropriate portable amp as my HTC HD7 has enough audio quality for portable purposes but not enough ooomph for 120ohm...
So I get a fiio e7 and a CMoy with bass boost... The senns have always been a little reserved in the bass and all the music I listen to lately is bass heavy... So I knew I was going to be using the bass boost of both units...
The e7 [$80]...
What a horrible horrible waste of money. I admit they sound better than no amp at all but the 3 preset bass boost eq settings sound pretty dull and flat. What's worse is it sounds strained, like the unit is struggling, and I mean at any volume level. Even on a middle volume level is sounds like its struggling. I also found they didn't have enough power to drive my 120ohm senns. Even at max volume, I could have done with a little more...
I was also annoyed by a glitchy fizzy sound that emanated as each track changed. I thought it was a characteristic of the HD7, but without the e7 and with the CMoy it didn't do it. Its like the e7 does a quick volume mute off/on when it detects no audio between the tracks. I don't know exactly, but I know its there and friggin annoying...
One possible reason for these sounding really crap is the 120ohm senns. Maybe these would sound better with 80ohm and lower impedance cans...
The CMoy [$50]...
Well what can I say, its an absolute gem. The one bass boost setting is spot on. Oodles of bass without effecting the rest of the frequency range. Even non bassy tracks now have a modern sounding warmth and thump you just dream about. Old Lionel Ritchie and Earth Wind & Fire sound modern and contemporary. Every twang of a string of an instrument is distinct as is snaps of fingers. I sometimes find myself listening to the same track several times as I pay more and more attention to the background instruments or vocals.
The bass is not only prominent and phat, it stays there to ridiculously loud levels, which I don't listen at, but others may do... I have the knob around 20-25% and its loud enough for me... These could drive 250ohm cans with ease... Two of the bassiest tracks I know of (Massive Attack - Angel and Brandy - I Wanna Be Down) absolutely shake my senns like it has a subwoofer in it, but it miraculously sounds appropriate and does so at any volume. My 12 year old senns still rock-n-da-house!
Both units were bought new off eBay... The CMoy was a hard choice as there were so many on eBay to choose from. I ended up going for a fellow Aussie seller. I imagine all the other CMoy Bass Boost amps would sound as good...
With the combination of this CMoy and the HD590s I feel like I'm in audio Nirvana... What a sound... I can't imagine portable audio sounding any better... I've been contemplating buying an apple ipod as a source, but I don't own anything apple and have found a lot of reports that modern ipods have use a Cirrus chip, but the old Wolfson was better... Oh well, the HD7 is doing the job for now...
My partner thinks I'm mad. I'd doing everything with the cans on. I cook in the kitchen with them on. I even go to the toilet with them on... Why not? [ Admit it, we all do
]
With audio this good, who needs TV? Honestly...
So I get a fiio e7 and a CMoy with bass boost... The senns have always been a little reserved in the bass and all the music I listen to lately is bass heavy... So I knew I was going to be using the bass boost of both units...
The e7 [$80]...
What a horrible horrible waste of money. I admit they sound better than no amp at all but the 3 preset bass boost eq settings sound pretty dull and flat. What's worse is it sounds strained, like the unit is struggling, and I mean at any volume level. Even on a middle volume level is sounds like its struggling. I also found they didn't have enough power to drive my 120ohm senns. Even at max volume, I could have done with a little more...
I was also annoyed by a glitchy fizzy sound that emanated as each track changed. I thought it was a characteristic of the HD7, but without the e7 and with the CMoy it didn't do it. Its like the e7 does a quick volume mute off/on when it detects no audio between the tracks. I don't know exactly, but I know its there and friggin annoying...
One possible reason for these sounding really crap is the 120ohm senns. Maybe these would sound better with 80ohm and lower impedance cans...
The CMoy [$50]...
Well what can I say, its an absolute gem. The one bass boost setting is spot on. Oodles of bass without effecting the rest of the frequency range. Even non bassy tracks now have a modern sounding warmth and thump you just dream about. Old Lionel Ritchie and Earth Wind & Fire sound modern and contemporary. Every twang of a string of an instrument is distinct as is snaps of fingers. I sometimes find myself listening to the same track several times as I pay more and more attention to the background instruments or vocals.
The bass is not only prominent and phat, it stays there to ridiculously loud levels, which I don't listen at, but others may do... I have the knob around 20-25% and its loud enough for me... These could drive 250ohm cans with ease... Two of the bassiest tracks I know of (Massive Attack - Angel and Brandy - I Wanna Be Down) absolutely shake my senns like it has a subwoofer in it, but it miraculously sounds appropriate and does so at any volume. My 12 year old senns still rock-n-da-house!
Both units were bought new off eBay... The CMoy was a hard choice as there were so many on eBay to choose from. I ended up going for a fellow Aussie seller. I imagine all the other CMoy Bass Boost amps would sound as good...
With the combination of this CMoy and the HD590s I feel like I'm in audio Nirvana... What a sound... I can't imagine portable audio sounding any better... I've been contemplating buying an apple ipod as a source, but I don't own anything apple and have found a lot of reports that modern ipods have use a Cirrus chip, but the old Wolfson was better... Oh well, the HD7 is doing the job for now...
My partner thinks I'm mad. I'd doing everything with the cans on. I cook in the kitchen with them on. I even go to the toilet with them on... Why not? [ Admit it, we all do
]With audio this good, who needs TV? Honestly...
